All Hail He Who Shoots First

This is delightful: What if Greedo really had shot first?

An Inherently Counterfictional Star Trek

The whole intent of this most recent Star Trek film is to provide a counterfictional environment in which to tell stories using the classic Trek characters without the burden of hewing to continuity of the myriad existing properties. Additionally, as the filmakers desired to get the entire crew together years earlier than within the existing timeline, new events must occur to thrust them together.

Basically, it's right up this blog's alley.

The mechanism which the filmmakers chose is reasonable in its basic conception, and perhaps the best available. The execution of this mechanism, as well as some of the ramifications for future stories within this rebooted universe are the subject of this post. This is in part critique of the movie, but moreover it's an examination of storytelling, physics and The Rules of the Game as established or discounted by the film.

Those avoiding spoilers should stop reading NOW.







Seriously, there are tons of spoilers below.










Okay. They must be gone. Let's proceed.

Prologue:

Physics and Star Trek.

One main difference between Star Trek and, say, Star Wars, is that Trek always tried to come up with a plausible explanation for things, even if it ended up wildly wrong. In the original series (TOS) this technical continuity was sometimes as simple as a button on the helm doing the same thing each week. And, given that hard science articles were probably a bit harder to track down during the writing of what began as a western in space, I tend to forgive a lot of the issues in The Original Series. When you're breaking new ground, sometimes you misstep. They tried. And things did get better by the time The Next Generation (TNG) rolled around.

For movies made today, with so much good science as close as the internet, I'm way less forgiving when physics are thrown out the window.

Here's the thing. Star Trek has always been intended to be our future. It's not a fairy tale. It needs to take place within a plausible version of our universe or it loses a fair amount of its power.

Continuity and a reboot

The writers of the movie committed to a choice which prevented them from giving over continuity altogether: Ambassador Spock travels from the 24th century. Because they're using a character from the accepted timeline, there is an expectation that everything that is “canon” has actually occurred to Spock. That is, he made the necessary calculations for time travel in “The Naked Time” in 15 minutes. He died in ST II and Returned in ST III. He traveled back in time in a rickety Bird of Prey in Star Trek IV.

I can understand adjusting issues of time ine to make this Star Trek relevant to us (clearly the Eugenics Wars of the '90s did not produce Khan. Unless I missed it), but the essential events that make him the Spock we know and love must needs be true, otherwise this older fellow named Spock carries no weight when he tells us things.

Part 1: The Inciting Incident.

The incident which allows the reboot is a supernova in the 24th century. Spock tells us that it needed to be stopped or it could destroy all life in the galaxy. I buy this... He's over simplifying, but a very powerful supernova could threaten life throughout Star Trek's alpha quadrant with its intense radiation.

But the star that novas cannot be the main star in the Romulan system, if we believe Spock's version of events. If it were to suddenly go supernova, Romulus would have only minutes to react, and collapsing the star with a singularity would do the citizens no good; without starlight, they'd all be dead anyway.

So if we take Spock at his word, that he tried and failed to save Romulus, the star has to be at least a few lightmonths away from the Romulan system, which gives plenty of time to begin an evacuation. As much as I admire Spock, were I a Romulan I'd make double sure of my survival and get off the planet while Spock works his magic.

Additionally, as this is the Spock who has been through TOS, the movies, TNG, etc. he is fairly adept at time travel. Failing to stop the Supernova by minutes or hours should be no problem for him, because he can zip back in time and make things better, especially considering he's in the fastest ship available, made by the Vulcan
Science academy. The one possible explanation would be that one cannot time travel with red matter, but that is proven false by subsequent events.

Here's what I think may have happened: studies showed that the Romulan star was approaching Nova (there is precedent for monitoring things like this, I believe, in TNG episodes) and Spock planned to stabilize the star and save the Romulans from having to give up their home world. But his plan went horribly wrong. He caused the star to go supernova, thus destroying Romulus. He had to act quickly to prevent the supernova from threatening the rest of the quadrant.

This direct guilt makes the case for Nero's lust for vengeance even more compelling. As it is, he is seeking retribution against someone who failed to be a hero, rather than someone directly responsible for an event. Which makes Nero more crazy than he really needs to be.

And, perhaps Spock's guilt for what he has done (having doomed both Romulus and Vulcan) plagues him, and has shaken his confidence in his ability to do rapid time travel calculations, etc. This is why he accepts a self-imposed exile in this alternate timeline in the 23rd century.

Or, as my brother points out: Spock could be lying. For all we truly know, he may be the evil Spock from the mirror universe who has cleverly shaved his goatee. Think about it.

Part 2: Troubles with the Physical Universe

One of the things that TOS and TNG were both pretty good at is conveying the notion that space is big. Super big. And empty. It takes time to get places. One of my huge problems with the Star Wars prequels is that because it takes very little time to get to places that are supposedly far flung, it shrinks that galaxy in an unfortunate way. But in ST, we're used to hearing things like “The nearest ship is two weeks away.”

There's a compression of time in the new Star Trek that is difficult to parse; it seems that the journey from earth to Vulcan takes only a few hours. It's conceivable that Kirk is unconscious in sick bay for quite some time, but that's not the “hurry, hurry” feel that is implied.

Traditionally, Vulcan is 16 light years from Earth. Even traveling at warp factor 9 on the TNG scale (where v=[W^(10/3)]c ) it would take the Enterprise around 4 days to cover that distance. If that is reduced to mere hours, it compresses the Alpha quadrant in an uncomfortable way. The mission to seek out and new life and new
civilizations loses a lot of down time when you can go places so quickly, but it's often in the down time that we actually get to see non-action related character growth: the poker games in TNG, the holodeck, etc.

So it's not the specifics of how fast the ship can go that bother me; it's how it makes the vast emptiness of space less imposing. You could say that they moved Vulcan closer, but the likelihood of Vulcan being closer to us than 16 light years given the universe we can observe in the 21st century is very small. Again, ST should, as much as possible, take place in our future.

This compression of space is carried over to the end of the film, when the Enterprise hides from Nero's ship in the atmosphere of Titan. While the image of the Starship emerging from the clouds is absolutely beautiful, the Enterprise is a hell of a long way from Nero. If they wanted to hide within striking range, they should be behind the
Earth's moon. They've got a several hour trip from Saturn, unless they do some crazy point to point warp thing, which has traditionally been unacceptable in the ST universe. But perhaps the filmmakers are changing that for this retelling. If in this technological timeline it's perfectly acceptable to warp from one planet to another within a solar system, this point is moot.

In other physical problems, there's an inconsistency in the treatment of atmospheric reentry. Kirk, Sulu and the ill-fated red-shirt are able to dive into Vulcan's atmosphere with no ill effects, while the escape pod that carries Kirk later shows definite thermal effects on reentry. This is one decision that I just don't understand. It would have been a relatively simple effect to give the space jumping crew members an exterior shell that burned off upon reentry, leaving them in their sleeker action suits by the time they had to open their chutes.

Related to gravity and atmosphere: starships need to be built in space, not Iowa. There is no plausible way to get the Enterprise off its moorings and into orbit. The image of Kirk overlooking the construction is great, but I wish that writers had embraced the similarities with Star Wars on this point and given the farm boy a set of powerful binoculars which he could use to observe the orbital construction.

There are other physical points to nit pick, but I'll end with this: When an enormous piece of metal falls from a great height into San Francisco Bay right next to the Golden Gate Bridge, the bridge will not survive. Even if it chunk of metal misses. The bridge will be severely damaged, as will bits of the city, from the resulting ground and water shockwaves.

Part 3: The Vulcans, The Romulans, The Klingons, and Star Fleet

In the movie, it is a huge revelation to Captain Pike that Uhura overheard that 50 Klingon ships have been destroyed by Romulans. If she had intercepted this message, every captain in Star Fleet should know about that. Losing double digit starships is a big deal, no matter whose they are. And it's especially significant if you're in a cold/occasionally hot war with the Empire in question. Perhaps Nero's appearance significantly changed the Federation/Klingon dynamic: it doesn't matter. Every captain needs to know that the Romulans suddenly have some serious fire power and are using it.

In conventional Trek timeline, no one knew that Romulans looked like Vulcans until Balance of Terror. Here, everyone knows what they look like. I'm presuming that's because Nero showed up 25 years earlier, some of the survivors from the Kelvin's bridge saw that he was a Romulan who looked like a Vulcan and brought word back to Starfleet. Then the Vulcans had to have a very awkward conversation with the rest
of the Federation.

This would actually explain a number of differences in Vulcan behavior. Perhaps it made them a more solitary race, which prompted Spock to be taunted more for his human side, which in turn led him to embrace that nature more thoroughly in this timeline. A significant shift in Vulcan behavior could also partially ameliorate some of the
following.

It was unclear to me on one viewing of the movie whether the report of a natural disaster on Vulcan is specifically related to the “lightning storm in space” that brings Spock's ship into the 23rd century, or if it is directly related to Nero beginning to drill. I presume the former.

Because the Vulcans should know what Nero is doing. They have the most advanced science academy in the Fedearation, and they can't see that he's drilling into their planet? Additionally, once it's detected that something untoward is happening, why don't the Vulcans begin to evacuate? They're being attacked by one ship which is in
geostationary orbit: surely a number of evacuation vessels could get thousands of people, if not millions, off the planet from other locations. Nero wouldn't be able to destroy them all. Additionally, there's no good reason presented why the Vulcan's don't try to do something about the planet drill themselves... For all the talk afterward of a population of six billion, the whole place looks pretty abandoned in the shots before its destruction.

The counter argument is that perhaps in this timeline the Vulcans feel that they are somehow deserving of punishment and are submitting to what comes. The problem is, the argument isn't very logical. It's also not particularly logical for the elders to be standing around big statues in meditation while the planet is in crisis. They should be taking action.

The problem with the treatment of the Vulcans continues into the denouement. The Vulcans have been a space faring race for thousands, of years (this is not something that should be affected by the chosen reboot device), warp capable for at least hundreds. It is absurd that only 10,000 were off planet at the time of attack; there should be millions in colonies around the alpha quadrant. Unless, of course,
the discovery of the common heritage with the Romulans caused them to withdraw to their home world. Again, this is not a logical action.

Part 4: Nero, his ship, singularities, and red matter.

Nero being a miner gives a casualness to his character which is great; he's not the stuffy captain we're used to seeing on the view screen. But here is where I come across another issue: yes, his ship is from the 24th century, but it's a mining ship. How does a mining ship have such advanced weapons that it can take out dozens of Klingon warships? In a one on one battle, I grant that it probably has an upper hand, not least due to advances in shield technology, but as portrayed in the movie it is nigh invincible, even against a great many ships. If it were a TNG era Romulan warbird, I would feel its superiority totally justified (those things are both huge and Bad Ass), but it is a non-military vessel.

I also find it interesting that it is the creation of singularities that provide the answer to the exploding Supernova, given that Romulan ships in the TNG era (which again we must accept, since Ambassador Spock is from that timeline) are powered by singularities. Perhaps the Red Matter is how they initiate the power for their ships.

That said, if all it takes is a little globule of it, why does Spock have such a huge orb of it on his ship? It is a decision made for no other reason than aesthetics.

By the end of the movie, we have a few smallish black holes floating around Earth's neighborhood. Which is why it's fortunate that Hawking radiation causes relatively small blackholes to evaporate over time. Otherwise they would float around warp corridors being the Worst Potholes Ever.

Part 5: Star Trek and Alternate Timelines.

In the past Star Trek has had a tendency to collapse alternate timelines into the existing narrative thread: ST IV, “Yesterday's Enterprise,” First Contact. The only ongoing alternate timeline that I can think of offhand is the Dark Mirror universe, which occurred in TOS and on multiple occasions in DS9.

The conventional Trek Universe must still exist in an alternate reality, because it's produced Ambassador Spock, who is clearly here... But this reboot produces a branching which is, I believe, unique to the franchise. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

I fully support having an alternate timeline, but the idea that it would essentially overwrite all of the Star Trek I know and love makes me a little queasy.

As does the loss of Vulcan within this timeline. Not having the Vulcan Science Academy should, theoretically, delay a great number of technological developments that were found in later branches of the ST Universe. Perhaps it won't matter as much since the starting point of their technology is much shinier due to advanced special effects (and lens flare).


Closing: The counterfictional crew

While a number of the preceding issues are troubling, the movie's premise did successfully throw together the compelling characters that we know and love, while giving them slightly different back stories that will allow relationships to develop in unexpected ways. The friendship between this Spock and this Kirk is based on very different grounds. They're both rebels, and both somewhat more reckless than
their conventional counterparts. This Kirk is more inherently cocky, a bit more of an ass, and his story will be one of finding maturity. He was always the youngest captain in Star Fleet. Now he's bested himself by several years.

What the movie does very well is show us why this crew is the best in the Federation, why they are deserving of our attention. Each character gets a chance to show off mad skills, even if only briefly, and the casting is spot on. I will gladly watch this crew on their counterfictional voyages... And I'm fairly confident that now that they've got the complications of resetting the timeline out of the way, future outings will be far more satisfying to me.

Provided they stick to the rules they've established.

What's Wrong With Jedi?

I'm usually a pretty staunch defender of the underrated Return of the Jedi -- but I find this list of flaws unanswerable.

We all know why it wouldn't work

But it looks cool anyway: lightsaber nunchucks



Also of counterfictional nunchuck interest: Bruce Lee playing ping pong.

Counterfictionals and the presidency

I had missed this because I only read DC comics these days, but Stephen Colbert's clever but knowingly doomed campaign for the presidency (in South Carolina) survived and thrived in the Marvel Universe. In fact, he won the popular vote, but lost the Electoral College, because, according to Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada, "the Marvel Universe reflects what happens in the real world."

Now there's a counterfictionally loaded assertion.

Didn't we have a discussion here about the "real life" locations of Gotham and Metropolis?

Which is irrelevant for Marvel Comics, because instead of creating fictional cities, the vast majority of the events of the Marvel Universe take place in New York City. Well, at least they take place in the Earth 616 version of New York City, and to try to bridge the reality and fiction, the comic industry fan mag Wizard has put together a map of important locations in the Marvel Universe New York City. Marvel themselves apparently did something similar a few years ago, and fans, of course, have done the leg work and taken photos of the real-life NYC equivalents.

Oddly enough, on the whole, I find Marvel's NYC far less interesting than Gotham or Metropolis. There's less room to play with, and while DC's fictional cities each have their own mythologies, Marvel very rarely makes use of the history of NYC in its storytelling. (It's worth noting that NYC actually exists in the DC Universe. Nightwing is hanging out there, at the moment.)

(Via Kottke, shared by J. Lavolette.)

Luke Is Dumb

The Five Reasons Luke Skywalker Is A Complete Idiot.

Batman & Politics: part II

Jonathan Lethem on The Dark Knight:

In its narrative gaps, its false depths leading nowhere in particular, its bogus grief over stakeless destruction and faked death, “The Dark Knight” echoes a civil discourse strained to helplessness by panic, overreaction and cultivated grievance. I began to feel this Batman wears his mask because he fears he’s a fake — and the story of his inauthenticity, the possibility of his unmasking, counts for more than any hope he offers of deliverance from evil. The Joker, on the other hand, exhibits his real face, his only face, and his origins are irrelevant, his presence as much a given as the Second Law of Thermodynamics, or Fear Itself.

The Joker’s paradox, of course, is the same as that of 9/11 and its long aftermath: audacious transgression ought to call out of us an equal and adamant passion for love of truth and freedom, yet the fear he inspires instead drives us deep into passivity and silence.

A Massive Military Buildup

Where does the officers corps of the imperial army in Star Wars come from? In the prequels the Clone Wars are fought entirely by Jedi, drones, and the clone forebears of storm troopers. The clones even have separate names, ranks, responsibilities. But at the end of Sith Tarkin is overseeing construction of the Death Star, dudes have uniforms, rank, a whole bureaucratic substructure independent of the Senate, the Jedi, even Vader. And there's no sense at all of the storm troopers in the Original Trilogy having any kind of officer corps.

Part of the drama of the original trilogy is the tension between Vader and the uniformed non-clone military. Also, the fleet is composed along racist lines: no unhelmeted clones, no non-Caucasian aliens. (The Bounty Hunters are dismissed as "scum.") Where do these guys come from? Are they conscripts? The mobilized remains of a brownshirted imperial militia?

Along with the retarded faceless droid armies in Phantom Menace and after, not exploring the encroaching militarism of the Empire is a serious oversight. It's not just a political failure that produces the empire -- it's the seizure of the mechanisms of force and the elimination of the Jedi as a competitor on the legitimate use of violence. As someone interested in how armies work, and fictional representations of soldiers and officers, I love the intimations in the OT and feel that very large gap in that part of the story.

Armies I think have to be seen as an emerging theme of the comics as well, and in some sense superhero stories are inherently anti-military. Obviously the recent Iron Man film addresses this head-on, but you also have The Hulk, Captain America, Nick Fury and SHIELD, and so on.

There is a utopian imagination at work whereby we seem to dream of a world where right-minded, ultrapowerful civil servants (whether Supermen or Jedi) eliminate the need for standing armies, traditional manifestations of force, and hostile international/intergalactic relations.

The great counterexample might be the Green Lantern Corps, a kind of armed invisible UN that is designed to keep the peace but also act as a kind of nuclear deterrent against interplanetary (as opposed to merely global and local) aggression. The Green Lanterns effectively seem to recognize each planet/sector as sovereign and world wars as local affairs in which they need not interfere.

And so, as with Star Trek, international or interethnic conflicts get allegorized as conflicts between actual aliens, while Superman, Batman, and friends are available to deal with local petty crime.

Star Wars may be the only manifestation of an honest-to-goodness civil war where the conflict between superhuman beings (the Sith and Jedi) are played against the backdrop of a purely human conflict between two organized armies. The events intersect but they do not determine one another. Even the destruction of the second Death Star has nothing to do with the Jedi or the Force really; it's Ewoks and rebels killing storm troopers, and a non-Force wielding fleet whomping the Death Star and Imperial troops.

So: how do these armies get started? (The rebel army is even more of a mystery.)

Why Superheroes and Politics Don't Mix

John August, "Aquaman is a Pescepublican":

Recent articles about the political leanings of popular comic book characters got me thinking about the uncanny valley between fictional and real-world ideologies. We’re happy to have characters speak in broad terms — “With great power comes great responsibility” — but the minute they start referring to specific issues, we become very uncomfortable.

How does The Flash feel about immigration? Is Wolverine pro-choice? Does Black Canary support the First Amendment rights of hate groups? We don’t know, and really don’t want to know....

I’d argue that the thematic success of comic book characters, and comic book storylines, comes from how closely they can approach the line separating Real from Too Real, without crossing it.

Up in the sky! It's a band! No, it's a supergroup!

Carl Newman on guitar. Neko Case on vocals and tambourine. Dan Bejar on vocals and some weird gourd-like rhumba shaker. Yep, that's the makings of the Canadian supergroup The New Pornographers. They've produced some of the finest pop albums of the last decade and I can't imagine a modern musical landscape without them. But who in the world would have ever predicted that this precise collection of folks (including Blaine Thurier, Todd Fancey, Kurt Dahle, and Kathryn Calder) would get together and make such sweet noise?

Our earlier post on countermusicals attempted to open the door of our fictional musings to explorations of fiction and counterfiction in music. A question posed there, and a question that is posed daily amongst fervent music geeks, was, and is: If you could construct your own supergroup of existing musicians, alive or dead, who would you choose and how would you arrange them? Much like crossover comics where fans finally get to see Spiderman team up with Green Lantern (I honestly don't know if that ever actually happened) for a token adventure, imaginary supergroups are your chance to bring your favorite musical worlds (pop or otherwise) together to play in tandem and fulfill your fantasies. Take your favorite guitar player and place him/her in front of your favorite drummer, behind your favorite piano player, your favorite harpsichordist, next to your favorite avant-garde vocalist. There are no rules. Just be sure to specify Beatles or Wings-era McCartney if you choose to go down that path.

To start things off, let's see what kind of band I can piece together. On guitar I'm tempted to go left with Johnny Greenwood or right with Doug Martsch, but I think my best bet is with J Mascis. I want there to be some cohesion in my group (sonic cohesion, not play-well-with-others cohesion), so I'll forgo obvious vocalist choices like Björk or Mark Kozelek and just stick with Robert Pollard (circa 1992). (Hamilton Leithauser a close second there for vocals.) Drums are easy with Glenn Kotche. We'll place Kathy Foster on bass guitar for sheer hotness, but also for excessive radness. To round out the sound, I'll also put Spencer Krug on the keyboard, but we'll restrict him to his more straight-ahead playing of Wolf Parade as opposed to his explorative Sunset Rubdown work.

How's that? Now you try.

Countertitulars

See! The Parallel Universe Film Guide.

But would they want to be a famous novelist?

When asked what superhero they'd most like to be by Entertainment Weekly, John McCain and Barack Obama both said Batman.

Countermusicals

Back in May of this year, Scarlett Johansson released an album titled Anywhere I Lay My Head featuring the actress's interpretation of ten Tom Waits songs. When the album began generating headlines, I remember Tim suggesting that he would be much more enthusiastic about an album of a slightly different sort. (The discussion actually dates back to the November 2006 release of the Joanna Newsom album Ys.) Tim's observation was that a great many songs by Joanna Newsom were actually ready-made for cover treatment by Waits -- the song we kept coming back to was "Sawdust and Diamonds." On the flip-side, it also seemed fitting for Newsom to try her hand with some of Waits' song catalog.

The Waits vs. Newsom discussion was refueled this week by NPR's "All Songs Considered" concert series release of a recording of an epic Tom Waits performance at the Fox Theater in Atlanta. The concert recording and Waits' performance was so remarkable that Tim and I couldn't help but fantasize further about the notion of a collaboration of covers between Waits and Newsom. With the recent birth of this very blog, there was an immediate connection to be drawn between Counterfictionals and what we might now dub as "Countermusicals." In the spirit of what Counterfictionals has set out to do, I see a lot of fertile territory out there for documenting those discussions we have all had so many times before:

If you could create your dream supergroup, who would be in the lineup? Who is on drums? Vocals? Lead guitar? Bass?

What band or artist do you wish was still around making music today or what artist vanished before their potential creative zenith? Nick Drake? Kurt Cobain? What music would they be making now?

The Beatles? Dream up any sort of scenario with these guys and then just ask the magic question of "What if?"

To demonstrate -- not that I need to -- let's go back to the example Waits and Newsom. In plotting our dream album of cover songs, we managed to plot Waits interpreting "Sawdust and Diamonds" and then Newsom putting some harp over her singing "Sixteen Shells From A Thirty-Ought Six." Beautiful. My favorite Waits song, though, is most certainly "Downtown Train." I suggested to Tim that this would be a track that I'd love to see covered by Newsom. Tim responded in saying perhaps a female vocalist might actually get the gender (assuming heterosexual relationships) right on "Downtown Train." The lyrics as sung by Waits:

Outside another yellow moon
punched a hole in the nighttime, yes
I climb through the window and down the street
shining like a new dime
the downtown trains are full with all those Brooklyn girls
they try so hard to break out of their little worlds

You wave your hand and they scatter like crows
they have nothing that will ever capture your heart
theyr'e just thorns without the rose
be careful of them in the dark
oh if I was the one
you chose to be your only one
oh baby can't you hear me now

Chorus

Will I see you tonight
on a downtown train
every night is just the same
you leave me lonely now

I know your window and I know it's late
I know your stairs and your doorway
I walk down your street and past your gate
I stand by the light at the four way
you watch them as they fall
they all have heart attacks
they stay at the carnival
but they'll never win you back

Chorus

Will I see you tonight on a downtown train
where every night is just the same you leave me lonely
will I see you tonight on a downtown train
all of my dreams just fall like rain
all upon a downtown train

Considering that "Downtown Train" hit #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1989 only after being covered by Rod Stewart, I think this is a poetic jumping-off point for the discussion on Countermusicals. Rod Stewart wasn't afraid to ask "What if?" and it garnered him a #3 hit. That's probably not a big deal for Rod, but as far as opening the floodgates of this blog, it might be a big deal for me.

On a slightly different note. . .

Chuck Dixon (DC Comics writer) on Batman's religion:

Graham Nolan and I had an ongoing argument about whether Bruce was raised Catholic or Protestant. I recently conceded to Graham than he must be Catholic. No Protestant ever suffered guilt the way Bruce does.

So what would you do with religion in a comic-book universe? (This may be a more interesting question in the DC universe than the Marvel universe, where all the pre-Christian deities—Zeus, Ra, Odin—are semi-active characters.)

What religion is your favorite character? (Click here for a cheat sheet.) How do you know and how does it affect how he/she operates? (Keep in mind for the purposes of this question, "religion" is cultural as well as theological.)

Superman orgasm=apocalypse

A humorous thought experiment on the Man of Steel's reproductive capabilities: "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex" by Larry Niven

One should not think of Superman as a Peeping Tom. A biological ability must be used. As a child Superman may never have known that things had surfaces, until he learned to suppress his X-ray vision. If millions of people tend shamelessly to wear clothing with no lead in the weave, that is hardly Superman's fault.

Batman Little

Is Omar Little the "Batman" of The Wire? This is fresh in my mind since last night I attended a panel discussion "The Making of The Wire" at the New York Times building, sponsored by the Museum of the Moving Image, where cast and crew discussed the epic HBO drama. (The panel included David Simon, Richard Price, Seth Gilliam, Clark Johnson, Wendell Pierce, and Clarke Peters.)

Back to my question, though. Omar, by his own admission, is "all in the game" whereby his life revolves around his participation in Baltimore's drug trade. From a law-and-order standpoint, Omar is a villain because he is quick to kill, steal, and sell drugs. From a heroic standpoint, however, Omar operates by a strict code: Stealing a line directly from Bunk Moreland, Omar says "A man's got to have a code." Omar never puts his gun on a civilian or non-participant in "the game." Omar flips out when the Barksdale crew breaks the longstanding sabbath ceasefire and nearly kill his grandmother on her way to church. For most of the series, Omar is also a vigilante driven by revenge -- revenge against the Barksdales for the death of Brandon Wright, revenge against Stringer Bell for setting him up, revenge against Marlo Stanfield for his attempted framing of Omar for murder, and so on. In addition to his vigilante status, he is also often working in cooperation with the Baltimore police, or doing what he can on their behalf as he lurks in the shadows of the drug corners pursuing his own agenda.

The portrait painted above, for me, draws some clear parallels to our friend Batman. Batman has an agenda of vengeance, though he operates by a strict code. That code generally means Batman only comes into contact with those who are willfully involved in "the game." Batman colludes with the police, but generally only on his own terms and, again, within his own code of conduct. (Omar is occasionally persuaded against his will to cooperate with the police, but more often than not, when the Baltimore detectives need Omar's help, they are forced to appeal to Omar's own sense of justice and morality in order to persuade him to do what they need him to do. Please recall the fucking brilliant scene between Omar and Bunk to illustrate this point.)

Like Batman, because of how he operates, Omar is often without friends, or friends he can trust, and he must live in hiding. Omar's headquarters, like the Bat Cave, are usually in abandoned row houses or tenements. Omar doesn't have an elaborate array of computers or gadgets, but he does have the best and biggest guns in town, and he usually travels by way of an unmarked vehicle (see point #3 of Gavin's primer on the Bat) such as a utility van or taxi cab. Omar also conducts his business under a cloak, whether it's something immediately evocative of Batman, such as his black duster jacket, or something more simple as a hooded sweatshirt. (Or sometimes Omar's disguises become more complex, like when he dresses up as an old man in a wheelchair in order to gain access to a Barksdale drug house.)

Additionally, toward the latter stages of the series, just saying Omar's name on the streets of Baltimore would incite immediate fear and chaos as small-time drug dealers would immediately run in the opposite direction or just throw their drugs into the street if they heard or saw Omar coming their way. How many crooks has Batman defeated simply by evoking his name or image? Both Omar and Batman learn to use their enemy's fear against them, usually to the point where all they have to do is arrive on the scene to decide the outcome.

And what about Omar's many sidekicks, or Robins? (See Gavin's point #5.) The death of his first Robin, Brandon Wright, is what first sends Omar over the edge. But Omar can't last long without a sidekick, so in subsequent seasons, he recruits "Brandon replacements" -- Dante, Renaldo -- who fill the same sidekick role, but never quite fill Brandon's shoes. And Omar's sexual relationships with his sidekicks further complicate his relationships with them. And we also learn that Omar, like Batman, usually has a plan to kill them all if need be -- see Dante.

The more I think about, the more parallels I begin to see. What did I miss?

Would you rather?

One of my favorite podcasts, Jordan, Jesse, Go!, has a reoccurring game called "Would You Rather?" Last November, in Episode 45, hosts Jesse Thorn and Jordan Morris tackle a rather "counterfictional" question:

Would you rather. . .
A. Be a great and celebrated novelist, or
B. Be friends with Batman?

Given the proclivities of the contributors of this blog, I thought it would be an interesting question to also pose here. What do you think? Would you rather?

Some important points that you will want to consider before making your decision:

What era Batman? We should assume a "modern era" Batman, but given the scope of literature, from year one to one hundred, I'm not certain what "modern era" is supposed to mean to us.

Is friendship with Alfred implied here?

In terms of being a novelist, will you be a popular, or rather a literary novelist? Let's assume that you can choose your own path here, whether you fancy the life of James Patterson or Philip Roth.

But, really, more questions about Batman. Would you have access to all things Batman? Can you bring dates into the Bat Cave? Will you be introduced to the Justice League? Can you help out with the crime fighting?

Jesse and Jordan bring up the astute point that being friends with Bruce Wayne immediately grants you access to anything. You're plugged into the social scene! Do you want to meet Al Gore? Well, just have your pal Bruce set up a benefit dinner and send the private jet. A counterpoint, however, is thinking of what bad things come with being plugged into the Batman world. Will becoming friends with Batman make you a target of the Penguin? Of course it will.

Will Batman help you move? Pick you up from the airport? Would he be too tired to hang out on the weekends?

I think the choice is clear, but is it too obvious?

Let's talk about the movie

All right, I think we're past the point where we have to worry about spoilers, but if you haven't seen "The Dark Knight" yet, then you might want to hold off on reading this post, because I plan to talk with no concern for giving away plot points, large or small. On the other hand, I saw the movie a week ago, so my memory might be a touch fuzzy in places.

I would like to make the argument that, as much as I enjoyed the movie, that I came away with the conclusion that the Batman, as Batman, simply doesn't work on the big screen, although, strangely enough, the Joker does.

"Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight" work largely because Christian Bale is a good enough actor to make you forget that he isn't really playing Batman. While Nolan and Bale deserve credit for sticking to point #2 of my "Batman Best Practices," Nearly all of the Batman movies filmed to date, whether Burton, Schumacher, or Nolan, seem to deal with Bruce Wayne's angst over putting on the mask, and his desire to create a situation in which he wouldn't have to be the Batman any more. In Batman as Batman, this conflict doesn't make any sense. It is strongly hinted that even if Bruce Wayne's parent's hadn't been killed, he would have been something like the Batman. Maybe not quite so dark or violent, but every bit as obsessive over the application of his own sense of right and wrong. (This idea is contained in both points #1 and #4. The death of Thomas and Martha Wayne isn't what made Bruce Wayne the Batman. He did that to himself.)

There are elements of the Batman that simply don't work in a live-action summer blockbuster. Not since Tim Burton's 1989 "Batman" has any film even much bothered to try to show Batman as a detective, and Nolan's Batman never really has to figure anything out. Ra's Al Ghul just shows up at his house, he discovers the Scarecrow's operation by accident after following Rachel Dawes to Arkham, and he's so helpless in dealing with the Joker that he has to create a universal surveillance system in order to find him. Nolan's Batman is more of a special-ops soldier. He's really good at designing small tactical operations, like when he pulls the crooked banker out of his building in Hong Kong, but he's not a detective. (But who can imagine a "detective" Batman movie? There are plenty of great detective television shows and films, but Batman as Sherlock Holmes, throwing hardly a single punch, probably wouldn't pack the theaters.)

Secondly, beyond the fact that point #1 of my best practices cuts off the "should I be Batman" conflict that nearly every film seems to feel the need to use, no actor would ever agree to use the comics' primary visual cue of the point: Wayne wears the Batman mask even when he's hanging out by himself in the Batcave. In real life, as an actor on a film set, that would be damn uncomfortable, and would eliminate most of the actor's face time. Whatever you want to say about Keaton, Kilmer, Clooney, and Bale, none of them are Lon Cheney, willing to disappear behind makeup for an entire film.

(Side point, or addendum to best practices, call it point 3.1—the bat-suit is not armor! In the modern comics, Wayne wears kevlar beneath the costume, but it should be closer to cloth than plastic. Light, slient, and not cumbersome. This, again, may simply not work on screen.)

In opposition to all this, it's interesting how faithful Nolan's Joker is to the comics, and the way that they are able to adapt key elements of the comics in realistic ways. In the modern cable/broadcast/satellite TV world, I don't know that it makes sense for the Joker to hijack every TV set in Gotham to announce his crimes, but Nolan makes an excellent choice in having the Joker videotape himself doing terrible things to people and sending it to the news outlets. the Joker doesn't have to hijack the broadcast when the networks are more than happy to air the footage of their own volition. It's a chilling commentary on our contemporary media culture.

Other key elements that Nolan is able to make use of are the Joker having a "multiple choice" past as shown by his infinitely adaptable "how I got these scars" story, and his aptitude for disguises. On the other hand, a Joker who is ultimately unwilling to kill the Batman doesn't make any sense. I'm willing to buy the "I don't want to kill you. You complete me" line as a lie containing a deeper truth from a character who is prone to such things, but the Joker's "you won't kill me, I won't kill you" when he's hanging upside down at the end doesn't make sense, and is the opposite of the long-delayed but ultimately inevitable dance of death that makes Alan Moore's "The Killing Joke" work. The Joker needs the Batman in order to exist AND he wants to kill the Batman AND he wants the Batman to kill him. That contradiction is at the root of his insanity, and it's what makes the character run.

The Star Wars Prequels, Pt. 3: Costumes and Cities

Jedi knights don't dress like this:

That's the outfit Obi-Wan wears when he's playing the old hermit on Tattoine. It's also how Luke's uncle dresses; essentially, it's the "Tattoine man" uniform.

Jedi knights dress like this:

 

Imagine Sam Jackson done up like that.

Also, one of the major differences between the Star Wars prequels and the original trilogy is that most of the action in the former takes place in beautiful, classical cities, while in the latter, it's almost all space stations, ships, and very sparsely populated planets and their spaceports. I like the contrast, but I think it demands explanation. When and why does the Empire seem to decamp, permanently spreading its power through its fleet? The Death Star isn't just a planet-destroying weapon: it's also a mobile and nearly impregnable fortress to project power. In the early stages of the rebellion, did the Imperial fleet level cities? In the absence of the Jedi, did social order dissolve? Did the Emperor grow paranoid like Dick Cheney? These questions demand answers.